


i'll crawl home to you

by contradictory_existence



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Tenderness, The Iliad References, The Odyssey References, Trojan War, they just love each other a lot okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24659635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contradictory_existence/pseuds/contradictory_existence
Summary: I love you,Crowley thinks, gazing out at the sea.Have done for centuries now. Here we are,in medias res,in the middle of things.I’ve loved you for so long I hardly know when it started.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	i'll crawl home to you

**Author's Note:**

> title from "work song" by hozier
> 
> technically, crowley is still going by crawly at this point in history, but it didn’t feel right to me, so i call him crowley
> 
> cw: references to ptsd and non-explicit violence

_now goddess, child of zeus,_

_tell the old story for our modern times._

_find the beginning._

There is not meant to be this much water, Crowley thinks. Miles upon miles of it stretching past the horizon, surrounding them, imprisoning them. Drowning them.

He is in a boat belonging to a man who has been condemned to empty skies and salty air by gods he has never met. Here, in the middle of the sea, he thinks of the flood.

The deck sways unsteadily beneath him, a dance he does not know the rhythm to. When he blinks, the inside of his eyelids are tinted yellow with the afterimage of so much blue. He longs for the feeling of soft grass under his feet, the solidity of the earth and her soil. It is not the only thing he misses.

Crowley thinks of the angel, of course he does. Thinks of his cloud-fluff hair and quick smile, the way his happiness shines out of his corporation like too much holiness and how he purses his lips into a dissatisfied moue when Crowley plans some particularly demonic wiles. He wonders if he’s managed to collect some new tablets or scrolls; maybe he’s picked up pottery, or weaving. Deft fingers, clever eyes—he’d be good at it. His angel, always so good. He finds himself staring into the horizon touching his own lips, a phantom kiss. Phantom, a good epithet that, haunted as he is by the thought of Aziraphale.

Day in and day out, they are at the mercy of the storms, the rowers straining against the wind and the waves. One step forward, two steps back. The entire Mediterranean becomes his liminal space, an inescapable Petri dish where he is watched by gods he does not know, and one he does.

At night, he sees fire consume the walls of Troy, and he screams himself hoarse.

Maybe he’s earned this. Maybe this is his penance.

…

He never wanted to go to Troy in the first place.

It was a stupid war, two men bickering over a woman they thought belonged to them and dragging everyone else into their mess. Ten years of fighting and bloodshed and bloated egos while high above, the gods play their fucking _ineffable_ game of chess.

He wishes he could forget, but he remembers. He remembers the missive he got from Hell, smoke-tinged and smelling sickly of sulfur. _T_ _here’s a war coming on, Crawly,_ they said. _Go_ _on, stir up some trouble, you know what to do. We’ll be watching._ (He doesn’t have the heart to tell them that the humans won’t need his help.)

He remembers the way he hissed and swore, the way Aziraphale’s face crumpled like the page in his fist. How Aziraphale, stone-faced and steadfast, wanted to go with him, and he said no, because it was a stupid idea, Hell would be watching, _do you know what they would_ do _to you, angel._ He slept fitfully that night, pretending to be asleep while Aziraphale pretended he didn’t know he was awake. They said goodbye in the morning and parted ways, and Crowley didn’t let Aziraphale see him cry.

He remembers them all—Iphigenia, and Troilus, and Patroclus, and Hector. The way Achilles screamed like a wounded animal and clutched his lover’s body to him. Crowley had turned away then, unable to keep watching.

He wishes he could forget. But that’s not the job of a demon.

…

They land on the island of the Cyclops, and everything goes to shit. _A_ _s if it hasn’t already,_ Crowley despairs. Stupid, foolish, arrogant humans. They rouse the wrath of Poseidon. Fall prey to Circe and her wolves. Eat the cows of the sun god. Bicker incessantly. Let their greed get the best of them. Through it all, he cannot decide if he wants to let them murder each other or kill them himself.

And yet.

They fight among themselves, and they are loyal to each other. They antagonize the gods, and they bury their dead. They raid and pillage, and they long for home. They are brutal, they are cunning, they are clever, they are kind.

(He likes them more than he should, sorry excuse for a demon he is.)

…

Another storm wracks the ship. Crowley is cold, so cold. He cannot remember the last time he felt warm.

He thinks of Troy, the tent he lived and died in for ten years and the whisper of an idea curling off a serpent’s tongue. _Don’t you want the war to end? Don’t you want to go home?_ That’s all he really meant.

But that’s not what they came up with.

He thinks of the trees they felled, the trap they built, the tale they spun. Here, they said, take it. Consider it a gift, no need to thank us. (Do you know what happens next?)

He only wanted to go home.

…

One by one, Odysseus loses his men. One by one, until he is utterly alone, and Crowley watches, every part of him aching. He doesn’t know why exactly, only that he feels an urge to see this through.

He watches him get beaten down by the gods, tossed to and fro by the waves, and crawl gasping for air onto the beach of Calypso’s island. For seven years, she plies him with sweet wine and even sweeter singing. A different kind of Hell, the serpent thinks, this having everything and nothing all at once.

He follows him to the land of the Phaeacians, where Odysseus accepts their hospitality with an empty sort of gratitude. When the bard sings of his heroism in Troy, Odysseus weeps. In the background, a servant girl carries an empty platter to the kitchen, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

He even goes with him back to Ithaca, where the land is rocky and the sky is low and Odysseus’ shoulders finally relax. Only then, does Crowley let him go.

…

_I love you,_ Crowley thinks, gazing out at the sea. _H_ _ave done for centuries now. Here we are,_ in medias res, _the middle of things._ _I_ _’ve loved you for so long I hardly know when it started._

_Tell me, angel, how does this story end?_

…

The door creaks open, the sound of it echoing through the hall. It seems bigger than it was when he left it so many years ago—or perhaps it’s him that’s smaller. “Angel,” Crowley croaks. “Angel, I’m home.”

“Crowley?” That voice, clear as a lyre. A rush of movement, and then. Bright-grey eyes and cloud-soft hair, cheeks rosy like the dawn. _A_ _ziraphale._ “Crowley, is that you?”

“Who else would it be,” Crowley says, breath hitching, “an aardvark?”

Aziraphale laughs wetly, pulls him close. “I’m not sure,” he teases. “You see, it has been so long since my love left for the city of Troy, my mind has started to play tricks on me. But if this is really him, if my dearest Crowley has come back home, I dare say I would recognize him in any form.”

Crowley buries his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. “Perhaps he was not certain how he would be received,” he whispers. “He has done unspeakable things in the time he was gone.”

Gently, Aziraphale presses their foreheads together. “Stranger,” he says, “you are always welcome here,” and it sounds like _my darling, stay forever._

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathes, voice cracking. “I’ve missed you.”

“So have I, my love,” Aziraphale murmurs, and Crowley chokes back a sob. _A_ _ngel, angel, angel._

Aziraphale wipes the tear welling up in Crowley’s eyes with his thumb and slowly, slowly, places a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. He pulls back slightly, exhale hovering feather-light across Crowley’s jaw and the tip of his nose brushing delicately against his cheek. They stand there for a moment, trying to remember how to breathe together.

Crowley can’t stop shaking, he doesn’t know why. He raises uncertain fingers to caress Aziraphale’s face, startling slightly when his fingertips meet warm skin, and then Aziraphale is leaning in and kissing him sweetly. His lips part, half surprised and half instinctive, and Aziraphale swallows his broken-off gasp easy as anything. The angel’s hands come up to cup either side of his face, holding him like he is something precious, something to be careful with, and Crowley _keens,_ he can’t help it. He threads his fingers into silky soft curls and loses himself in the feeling of Aziraphale’s mouth on his, the gentleness of his lips, the warmth of his breath. But he’s not lost, he realizes as Aziraphale takes him by the hand. He is found. He is home.

They make their way towards the bedroom, the years they spent apart falling away with each step. Twenty years—a length of time that should mean absolutely nothing to them, but too long all the same. It’s there in the clutch of Crowley’s arms around Aziraphale’s neck, in the trembling of Aziraphale’s hands on his hips, in the magnetism of their souls yearning to be closer and closer and closer still.

Crowley pulls Aziraphale to him and lets the solid weight of him ground him in the mattress, lets his body roll up into Aziraphale’s the way the wine-dark sea kisses the sky and he kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. “Aziraphale,” he gasps, breathing him in like a drowning man.

 _Let me learn you again,_ he thinks, _the edges of you, the depths of you. It has been so long since I’ve seen you. I have only heard excerpts of you, told and retold in the tongue of foreign bards in foreign courts. Let me know you in your own voice, tell me how the story goes. Let me listen to the epic of you, all of it. Don’t leave out a word. I’m listening. We have all the time in the world now._

They go slow, the undercurrent of desperation fading into a whisper. Instead, there is Crowley twining his fingers into the angel’s hair, Aziraphale tracing poetry into the space between his shoulder blades. Tender kisses to collarbones and chests and bellies, hands discovering the old paths they used to know. There is the delicious drag of friction and the gentle press of fingers, yes, but all of the physical sensations are secondary to the utter relief of being with each other once more. _I_ _’m here, I’m here,_ Crowley says without speaking, and Aziraphale answers, _y_ _es, my dear, so am I._ Here, in the space between them, they do not need words.

Yet every movement is steady and certain and full of intent, translating the emotional into the corporeal. Crowley can feel it, the weight of it, and it’s so much he thinks he might overflow. He screws his eyes shut and tries to turn his face into the pillow, overcome.

“Hey,” Aziraphale says softly, “none of that now. Let me see you.” With a gentle hand, he coaxes Crowley’s face back towards him, urges him to open his eyes. They’re fully serpentine now, Crowley knows, have bled yellow from corner to corner, and he resists the impulse to close them.

Aziraphale’s breath catches. “There you are,” he says reverently, pressing kisses to Crowley’s cheek, jaw, neck. “My beautiful Crowley.”

“Always, always yours, only you.” Crowley cries out, grasps at Aziraphale’s back. “Angel!”

…

Afterwards, they lie together, sated. Finally, the ache in Crowley’s chest begins to fade.

“You’re here,” Aziraphale whispers, marvelling. “You came back to me.”

“I did,” Crowley whispers back.

Aziraphale smiles. “ _Y_ _ou have made my stubborn heart believe in you._ ”

Crowley laughs softly. “Stubborn is right. So stubborn, my angel. Couldn’t let a day pass without thinking of you.”

“Me too,” Aziraphale says. “All those years you were gone, and my mind always made its way back to you.”

“Guess I’m hard to forget, huh?” Crowley teases, tenderly tracing the lines of Aziraphale’s face. Some of them are new, he thinks, little ridges and furrows that he does not yet know but familiar all the same. Still Aziraphale, still his angel.

“Yes,” Aziraphale answers simply, honestly, fondly. “Not that I’d ever want to forget you. My dearest heart, my darling love. I’m quite smitten with you, you sly serpent.”

Crowley tenses involuntarily at the name, that reminder of what he is. Distantly, he hears the metallic clash of swords and the crippling weight of armor. _Y_ _ou’re okay, you’re okay,_ he tells himself. _You’re not there anymore._

“Crowley?” Aziraphale brushes a tendril of hair from his face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

A part of Crowley longs to brush it off, to shut the door on the past and say that everything’s fine, but it’s not, he knows in his heart that it’s not.

“Did you hear what happened at Troy?” he asks, throat dry. Aziraphale nods, silent and waiting, and Crowley starts to speak.

“The soldiers, they were getting tired, they were frustrated. It had been ten years since the war started, they’d already tried to mutiny once, and I. I saw an opening. That night, I slithered into Odysseus’ tent and I whispered to him, just a little temptation. Wasn’t he tired of this war? Hadn’t it gone on for far too long? Didn’t he miss his wife and son? And I told him, he’s so clever, he must be able to find a way to end the war. And I was right,” Crowley says with a bitter laugh. “He did find a way.”

“All I wanted was for the war to end, for everyone to go home. I swear, that’s all. I never thought they’d do something like that. I—I never thought…” Crowley squeezes his eyes shut, and for a moment, he sees Troy fall again. The Greeks flooding into the city, torchlight glinting off the bronze of their spears, their faces terrible in the shadows. The Trojans, fighting back as best they could and dying all the same. The old and young, slaughtered and dragged through the streets while the women screamed. The palace, the houses, the temples—all of it going up in flames. He shudders.

When he opens his eyes again, he sees Aziraphale, eyes watery as a hand reaches out to hover over his cheek. Slowly, carefully, it comes to caress his face. “Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, barely audible. He gathers Crowley into his arms, gentle as anything, and Crowley breaks down and cries.

Later, much later, there will be a cottage in the South Downs, and Crowley will not flinch at the sound of the sea, and Aziraphale will call him _serpent_ with so much joy and adoration that he will forget what it was made to mean. _I_ _hated him for a while,_ Crowley will say. _O_ _dysseus._ And Aziraphale will say gently, _I_ _t wasn’t his fault. Just like it wasn’t yours._ And Crowley will nod, the pain in his chest still there but gradually fading away. _I_ _know,_ he’ll say, _but for a while I thought both of us deserved it._ And Aziraphale will hum quietly and pull him close, just like he did all those years ago.

Right now, though, it hurts too much. “I tried,” he manages to choke out, “I tried to keep them safe. To keep you safe.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says, stroking his hair. “I know, my dear. You can rest now. It's alright.” He presses a kiss to his forehead, whispering, “Sleep, love. I’ll be here when you wake.” And by some miracle, dawn comes knocking later than she should.

…

_Sing to me, muse. A song to light the way when the days grow dark. A story of coming home._

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [contradictory-existence](https://contradictory-existence.tumblr.com/)
> 
> major inspiration from homer’s odyssey, translated by emily wilson. basically all of this exists because of my humanities class lol


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